8 best practices for your corporate wellness team

AdvantageHealth, based in Minnesota, designs each corporate wellness program based on clients’ business plans and culture, and then implements, manages and evaluates it throughout its existence. Over the next 7 blog posts, we will discuss the seven foundational elements of employee wellness in detail as identified by the Statewide Health Improvement Program (SHIP) and Living Health in Washington County (LHWC).

This week we will discuss STEP 2: Convening a Worksite Wellness Committee: Create a team and meet regularly to work on wellness issues. Distributing the wellness responsibility through a wellness committee, will ensure that your wellness program will continue over the long-haul.

The second step is to establish a wellness committee that meets regularly with clear responsibilities, goals and agendas. Create a name for your wellness program along with a logo.

Best practices for establishing a wellness team should include the following:

Include worksite wellness responsibilities as part of the committee members’ job descriptions. This way duties and responsibilities won’t be pushed to the side.

Promote the wellness committee members throughout the company. Pictures can be powerful. Include pictures of your committee in action with names and roles.

Communicate about the wellness program often. Think outside of the box, tap into your marketing/communications department to do this as well.

Develop a committee with strong leadership. Your committee will need vision, energy, a spirit of inclusiveness and a genuine desire to help others. Your team leader should be someone who can create agendas, handle conflict, set priorities, motivate others, meet goals and deadlines and communicate throughout the organization.

Add diversity to your committee. Try to include representation from all different functional areas, experience levels, ages and fitness levels. A larger organization could have a team of 14-20 people. A small organization may do well with 4-7 people.

Meet regularly. Face-to-face meetings once or twice a month are best. Update any members who miss the meeting to keep them well informed and involved.

Distribute agendas prior to each meeting and assign someone to take minutes.

Participate in continuing education about wellness. WELCOA offers many essential trainings and certifications online. Subscribing to AdvantageHealth’s blog or social media and other industry leaders’s blogs will also help to keep your team up to date.